


Alternative American Wizard Schools: Quichequey

by windfallswest



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: American Civil War, Gen, Great Plains, Native American, american wizard schools, wizard schools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 01:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16483106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: The Shy City of the Great Plains.Urbs Pudens: Numquam Physiculant Eveniens.





	Alternative American Wizard Schools: Quichequey

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Alternative American Wizard Schools: Maralleyne University](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412017) by [darkmagess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmagess/pseuds/darkmagess). 



> An enormous thank you to [darkmagess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmagess/pseuds/darkmagess), who inspired and alpha'd this, not to mention creating the first alternate American wizard schools, [Saniwa Institute of Dracobiology](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372066) and [Maralleyne University of New Orleans](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412017).

The story of Quichequey, also known as Sky City or the Shy City of the Great Plains, began in Alsace in 1779, when Benignus Baumgartner and his precocious younger brother, Beatus, matriculated at the Durmstrang Institute, which their parents favoured over Beauxbatons Academy. There they befriended Premysl Dobromil, a native of what was in those days the kingdom of Bohemia in the Austrian Empire.

Although older than both the brothers Baumgartner, Premysl was somewhat hapless and grateful for their protection. He did, however, possess a notable talent for divination. While both were competent duellists and DA practitioners, Benignus Baumgartner's interests lay with herbology and potions, while his precocious younger brother had a talent for clever charms and jinxes, often adapting or creating his own.

They were handsome and charming, but also crafty and self-interested. The trio's departure from Europe to the New World, some few years after completing their studies, came on the wings of a scandal. Beatus Baumgartner was accused of disrupting the engagement of a witch of good family by means of a love potion brewed for him by his brother.

Finding the coastal area still too civilised for their tastes, Premysl and the brothers Baumgartner drifted gradually inland, peddling charmed objects and potions, often of a sort respectable merchants did not carry. At first, they operated on ships and in river towns. It was Benignus, finding it most unrewarding to try and cultivate a greenhouse in a trunk or saddlebags, who first had the idea for the outpost: permanent but mobile, the better to stay hidden from No-Maj eyes and keep pace with the shifting boundaries of westward expansion. A port-key city.

It took Beatus years to work out and perform the spells, and the first shift nearly ended in disaster. The brothers and Premysl found themselves and their camp transported from the forested hills of Appalachia to the seemingly endless plains at the heart of the continent.

"Have you ever seen anything like that?" Premysl said to the Myaamiaki who come to investigate, gesturing expansively and speaking in his heavily accented French.

"...Kiishikwi?" a Myaamia, who had learned some of that tongue from fur trappers, replied with his people's word for the sky.  


"Quichequé." Beatus tasted the word and nodded.

No French trappers had married into that family, but they recognised the wands as the white man's unspiritual medicine and sent for a visitor who had recently arrived at their summer farming village.

Raised in the French territories, Cyriacus Gauthier had little respect for the continent's native inhabitants and often resorted to pressure tactics or outright threats when trading, making him a less than a welcome visitor. Gauthier saw the potential of the moving outpost immediately, though, and with his wide knowledge of the land, ecology, peoples, and routes (such as they were), was accepted into the partnership.

By the turn of the century, Quichequey had established itself as the last waypoint and source of magical supplies for those headed westward, or for those travelling between New Orlean in the south and the northern Canadian territories. However, the various tribes soon discovered that Gauthier's new associates were cut from the same cloth, and the outpost was often less than welcome when it was seen in their territories.

Premysl's skill at divination and Gauthier's knowledge of the land were essential to establishing when and where to move the outpost—including to the banks of the Ohio or Mississippi, sometimes to meet travelling wizards, but sometimes also to intercept No-Maj ships carrying desirable goods. Because the outpost was always moving, portkeys had to be enchanted specially; this was Beatus' task. This, they said, was why their prices were so high.

Beatus and Gauthier advertised their service and sold the portkeys to merchants in destination cities and towns. Benignus fostered a garden, and eventually a small greenhouse. His potions ingredients, it must be admitted, were probably the finest of what they sold, aside from the portkey service—although his potions did not always perform _quite_ as advertised.

Travellers often observed that, while the brothers Baumgarten were charming, there was something unsettling about them and the dark-haired, pale-eyed Premysl (if Gauthier seemed wild and dangerous, well, it was to be expected). But they were just passing through, and anyway, what other option was there? Months of travel in a No-Maj wagon-train?

And maybe every once in a while, a wizard or small group travelling alone would wake up to find themselves in the middle of a forest or featureless plain, all of their possessions vanished along with the outpost. Their last memory was often of Benignus Baumgarten pouring them a drink in the goods shed. Most of them never survived to register a complaint.

Quichequey grew slowly. The goods shed became a general store, and Chicory, a witch escaped from slavery in the South, stayed to tend the counter instead of moving on as most did. An inn with a tavern replaced the store's side counter. A couple of magical artisans set up shop.

In 1811, Gauthier married young Eligia Proulx, travelling north from school in New Orleans. Two years later, she gave birth to a child—stillborn, but with the brown hair of the brothers Baumgarten. She admitted to an affair with Beatus. Gauthier immediately challenged him to a duel, but was no match for quick Beatus and his Durmstrang training. Beatus didn't mind doing favours for his brother.

Having removed the obstacle posed by Cyriacus, the widow Gauthier continued her association with Benignus, although the couple never married. Blinded by his own desires, Benignus never saw how closely Eligia watched him. She whispered in his ear, and he grew jealous.

The next winter, Benignus poisoned his brother, suspecting that Cyriacus Gauthier's accusations were not as baseless as he'd at first believed. The year after, Eligia Gauthier sabotaged a portkey, intending to rid herself of Benignus as well. Forseeing the danger, Premysl seized it instead, sacrificing himself to protect his friend.

Benignus began to lose his mind, maybe from grief and guilt—or from what his lover put in his food every day. There was gossip in the small settlement, but nobody dared say anything to Eligia's face except for Chicory, the clerk at Quichequey's general store. Chicory was of the opinion that Eligia's turn-about was only fair, considering what Benignus had used to make for Gauthier to put in her food.

Chicory also knew a different kind of divination. Eligia had learned a great deal from her associations with the brothers Baumgarten, but she hadn't yet been ready to cut out Premysl as well. Shrewdly, Chicory bargained for partnership. She had stayed, she said, for all these years because she'd foreseen that Quichequey had great potential.

Eligia Gauthier was compelled by necessity to share the secret mechanism that controlled Quichequey's shifts with Chicory, but the valuable trick of enchanting the portkeys that were the sole means of travel to and from the outpost she was determined to keep to herself. Benignus Baumgarten was found dead of the same poison that had killed his brother some months before the birth of the widow Gauthier's second child, a girl she named Valeriane, later famous as a noted explorer and scoff-law, as well as an accomplished duellist.

Absent any other heirs, Mme Gauthier inherited all the founders' resources, making certain everyone knew that this included control of the growing outpost. The joint governance of Eligia and Chicory saw civilisation begin to take hold in Quichequey. A few years of lowering the founders' exorbitant prices, including the percentage take of all business conducted in the outpost, plus a slow but measurable improvement in relations with the Indian tribes they encountered—as much for the sake of security as anything—led the outpost to grow into a thriving town in the 1820s.

It was then that events in the non-magical world began to impact Quichquey. An escaped slave herself, Chicory spoke out loudly for the magical community to take action against the practice, ridiculing the separation of magical and non-magical culture as a European fallacy that should not be allowed to govern this continent at the expense of African peoples. More escaped slave practitioners began to settle in Quichequey, and Chicory was accused of building a power base.

The partnership between Chicory and Mme Gauthier had been mutually beneficial, but the two women were not friends. As a merchants association, nearly a town council, started to demand a say in governance, Mme Gauthier was forced to weigh Chicory's usefulness against the risk of losing her own grasp on power.

Factions arose. Outside the authority of MACUSA, Quichequey had always accepted those with magical abilities, as well as their families. An influx of East Coast wizards held the opinion that only wizards belonged in magical communities. Long-time residents saw no reason to either disturb the status quo or to go looking for trouble. Few were interested in harbouring No-Maj slaves with no claim on magical heritage, but some were of the opinion that transporting escapees north to freedom was only decent, and would cost Quichequey little. One faction, discomfited by the growing unrest of the American House Elves, was even of the opinion that a class of No-Maj workers might prove useful. At the other extreme were those who argued that Quichequey should become a refuge for all, in defiance of the Statute of Secrecy.

Several attempts were made to incorporate Quichequey into the Underground Railroad, varying in scope and success. Perhaps the most notorious was the conspiracy that finally toppled Chicory from power, when it came to light that she had been manipulating the city's movements in order to transport runaway slaves, both magical and not. Allegations that she was also conspiring to harbour No-Maj slaves in Quichequey by persuading her followers to falsely claim them as family were never substantiated, but she and family members of over a dozen African-American practitioners were exiled from the city.

For half a century, Quichequey had roamed the plains with relative freedom; now, No-Maj settlers were starting to constrain its movements. Mme Gauthier was being penned in.

She had learned how to hold onto power, though, and although she was compelled to share the secret of the magic that kept the Quichequey in motion with a diviner, she guarded jealously the secret of how to enchant portkeys that could find it. Having no choice but to agree to Chicory's banishment, Mme Gauthier found herself once more in need of a powerful seer.

Time was of the essence. She was under pressure to accept a candidate from the town council, with which she had been in a power struggle for years. Any white candidate was a potential rival, but an African practitioner would be vulnerable to the same accusations as Chicory.

However, it happened that the same westward expansion that was threatening Quichequey was also encroaching on the lands traditionally occupied by native tribes. What started as restriction became relocation.

Roparzh Godfroy was a Myaamia medicine man whose tribe had been divided between Indiana and the new Indian Territory. Born the son of a French trader during the last century, like most of his tribe he had no love for either the British or their American successors. He knew better, now, than to trust alliances, so he came to Mme Gauthier with leverage. Quichequey needed safe places to shift between. The Myaamia had land on both sides of the Mississippi River. Godfroy would guide the city's movements and arrange to share his tribe's territory in exchange for a seat on the city council and free passage for all Myaamia practitioners between the two halves of the tribe.

Her options limited, Mme Gauthier had little choice but to agree. The city was as outraged as the council, who saw their opportunity to seize control slipping away. The arrangement was viewed as hypocrisy by partisans on all sides of the slavery debate. The objections grew louder and louder until violence threatened to erupt.

Although persuaded to agree to Godfroy's terms only reluctantly, Mme Gauthier did not abandon a course of action once she had embarked on it. In a stroke of daring, she called the opposition's bluff by grounding the city and dropping its magical defences. The panicked casting of spells to repel No-Majs more often set off stampedes of nearby bison herds. Even a city of wizards must think twice when confronted with a herd of several million panicked bison bearing down on it.

The city council was left with no choice but to back down. Roparzh Godfroy negotiated with other tribes in addition to his own, and some agreed to allow Quichequey on their lands. This led to increased traffic of Indian shamans and medicine men to the city and its markets, now a valuable source of ingredients and supplies not available in their new lands.

The beginning of the end for Mme Gauthier came in 1851 when a group of African-American wizards succeeded independently in unravelling the secret of enchanting port-keys to and from the moving city. Protected by Quichequey's independence and constant motion from MACUSA's strict adherence to the Statute of Secrecy, they managed to transport over a hundred slaves to freedom before their operation was exposed.

Initial promises of harsh punishment faded quickly when the ringleaders made it known they could break Mme Gauthier's stranglehold on travel to and from Quichequey. Esai Oquendo was elected as the first mayor of Quichequey, and Mme Gauthier found herself reduced to almost the same level as any other city councillor, although she retained ownership of several businesses and a great deal of property, including a potions emporium with cuttings from Maralleyne's famous gardens in New Orleans and several of Benignus Baumgarten's particular strains.

Quichequey was affected more by the No-Maj Civil War than the upheaval surrounding House Elf liberation;throughout the conflict, seers worked together in teams to divine safe locations for the city's shifts and guard against partisan activities such as Chicory's.

Few Indian practitioners settled in Quichequey until the latter half of the nineteenth century. While they were willing to use the city as a market and travel route, most shamans and medicine men held positions of responsibility in their tribes. However, as No-Maj policies against Indians became more aggressive, tribes became desperate enought to send children with magical ability to Quichequey as a safe haven from mandatory boarding schools, where harsh treatment might result in dangerous consequences. This was the beginning of the Quichequey Centres for Traditional Arts, although it was many years before the institution was formally recognised.

The decision for even partial separation between tribe and magical practitioners was not arrived at lightly, although many wizards were inclined to feel smugly vindicated that the Indians seemed finally to be seeing the necessity of the Statute of Secrecy. However, it was the general feeling among the various shamans and medicine men that their current difficulties had been caused by the European-descended settlers and their split culture, rather than their own integrated way of life.

At first, there was little interaction between the teaching enclaves of various tribes, not all of whom were friendly with one another. City policies came to treat them as members of the same administrative class, and eventually it became simpler to consult first among themselves and then present unified decisions to city authorities. Today, the Quichequey Centres for Tribal Arts are dedicated to continuing the magical and spiritual traditions of over a dozen tribes, using methods passed down for thousands of years. The Centres have also become a unique forum for inter-tribal exchange, exploration, and innovation.

Quichequey's other institution of higher learning, Chicory University, has its roots in two distinguished nineteenth century schools: the Sky City School, founded in 1828, and the Chicory Heritage Institute, founded in 1857 by freemen and escaped slaves to revive and reinvent African magical traditions on the North American continent.

After Quichequey's absorption by MACUSA in 1895 and the 1903 Magical Educational Reform that formally split magical post-secondary schools from the lower grades, the Sky City College merged with the Chicory Heritage Institute to form Chicory University. The school still teaches a distinctive mixture of African and European techniques. Although it is extremely rare for an outsider to be invited to study at the Quichequey Centres, shamans and medicine men and women from different traditions will sometimes guest lecture or teach courses at CU and collaborate with CU faculty on special projects.

Most travel to and from Quichequey is still accomplished via portkey, although night stopovers at pre-scheduled locations are now arranged for those who prefer to fly. A diviner was needed to personally direct each shift until 1971, when the process was finally automated, although one is still employed by the city as part of the municipal Bureau of Covert Vigilance. Experiments involving Floo travel have so far proved unsuccessful, and those attempting to travel to Quichequey using Floo powder are likely to emerge in grass fires hundreds of miles away instead. One popular (but unproven) theory is it that this is the result of some unknown hex placed on the original outpost by Beatus Baumgarten himself, for the purpose of preventing uninvited visitors in Quichequey's morally opprobrious early days.

Today, Quichequey stands as the largest entirely magical community in the western hemisphere. It has become a destination in its own right as well as a hub for magical travel. Wizards from all over the world come to experience the unique cultural exchange that has made Quichequey what it is today and explore two centuries of magical architecture, exemplified in historical buildings such as City Hall, the Quichequey Claustrum, and the Sky City Casino, which floats a hundred feet above the famous park and gardens, a famous example of the New Paradox architecture also seen in many Chicory University buildings.

Visitors arriving by portkey will find themselves amid the Gauthieric brick arches and enchanted wrought iron filigree of the Quichequey Claustrum. Perhaps because of the high historical concentration of precognitives, Quichequey is also home to a number of magical gambling establishments where stumping seers is a point of pride, exemplifying the city's motto, _Urbs Pudens: Numquam Physiculant Eveniens_.

**Author's Note:**

> - _Urbs Pudens: Numquam Physiculant Eveniens_. Translation—Shy City: They never see it coming.  
>  -Quichequey follows the pattern of Americans corrupting French spellings of Indian words, in this case Myaamia kiishikwi [kij- **ꭍꭇ** -kwe] (Btw, [Myaamia dictionary with sound clips](https://www.myaamiadictionary.org/dictionary2015/index.php)). In the terrible way of American pronunciation, most people probably say it [kǝ- **ꭍꭇ** -kij]; Magess votes for [ **kꬱtꭍ** -ʌ-kij].  
> -Claustrum = key, i.e., the portkey terminal  
> -Quichequey is also basically wizard!Vegas, which of course means crazy spectacle architecture, you can imagine. New Paradox is Frank Lloyd Wright/M. C. Escher. Have fun navigating that campus, kids.
> 
>  
> 
> [More behind-the-scenes commentary on pillowfort.](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/165984)


End file.
